"Because of you we are being killed all day long, and accounted as sheep for the slaughter." (Psalm 44: 22)
Wow! Perhaps we can read this and say, "I've felt that way." Thanksgiving often brings extended families together. And perhaps it is with our families that we see this idea played out. Mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, brothers and sisters, and so on and so forth, saying one version or another of: "I've worked so hard for you...don't you care?" The people we are closest to can be the hardest to love. There are joyous, mountain-top experiences for sure. But there are also deep valleys. It is difficult, (even agonizing sometimes) to learn to live with the ones we love. "For you we are being killed all day long."
If you read Psalm 44, you can recognize this same tension that we all know: "I've worked so hard for you...don't you care?" Only Israel is a nation often at war with other nations. Their soldiers were literally "killed all day long." As hard as this sounds, it is worsened by the hope they have of a better life. For Israel is the family of God. They are his special possession and family. The family struggles are all the more painful because they believe so strongly in the faithfulness of God. Their faith is being tested. They wonder, "Where are you, God?"
We all know what this is like: we encourage, remind, "love on" one another to make the right decision. And sometimes it blows up in our faces! We think, "Surely, if God was really here right now, things would be different."
Jesus and his cross make sense of all of this. He gave everything up for us. He came down from his throne in heaven to become like us. If you think that is a long way to go, he then gave up that life to die for us. He gave everything.
Just think about "everything" for a second. Everything you are afraid of. Everything that poses a challenge to you. All obstacles. Jesus promises us that all of it is placed under his power through his death on the cross because he gave everything. Do you believe that?
Paul did. He thought about "everything" to describe this. "Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" (Romans 8:35) These were probably things Paul was afraid of. He placed them under Christ's power because he believed Christ dealt with them for good.
Then he quotes Psalm 44, "As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all day long." Like the Hebrews, we wonder why God isn't with us when we suffer. But Christ makes sense of this. Suffering is awful. But look at Christ's life. Wasn't God with him all the way? Didn't God do the most amazing things through him, especially the things he suffered? So it is with us. From this Thanksgiving to the next, as we encourage, remind, and love on our friends and neighbors, it will get messy. Like anytime I'm about to cook anything, I remind myself, "it will get messy." But when it does, we pray, "Christ, bring life from this death." Bring joy from this pain! This is the power of God at work in everyday life. Pride and ego will keep us from loving others because we don't want to get hurt. We can't let that happen. This sort of thing has to die. So may we let Christ kill it in us all day long through his Spirit alive in us.
So when we are with our loved ones, don't settle to be "close, but not too close"! We are meant for so much more. More of you, God, and more of those I find hardest to love.
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